Part 8

The desire of the child for sweets is a natural one, because it uses so much energy, and sugar supplies this energy with less effort of the digestive system. When the child begins to eat more solid foods, if sugar is used in abundance for sweetening, it is no longer attracted by the mild sweetness of fresh milk, and it is well to cut down the allowance of sugar, when the child turns against milk, in the hope of restoring the taste for this valuable food. Many of the best authorities state that the child, up to its third year, should never be allowed to taste sweets, in order that the appetite may not be perverted from the natural sweets of milk.

Sugar is better supplied the child in a lump or in home-made candy, rather than in the sweetening of porridge, oatmeal, or bread and milk, etc.

Sweet fruits, fully ripened, contain much sugar and should be freely given to the child. The natural flavor of fruits and grains is very largely destroyed by sugar, which is used too freely on many articles of diet.

Most vegetables and fruits contain sugar,—indeed sugar is the only nutriment in many fruits. The sweet taste in all fruits and vegetables is due to its presence. Sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, parsnips, turnips, grapes, figs, and dates are especially rich in sugar and when these are furnished with a meal, in any appreciable quantity, the starches should be restricted—notably bread, potatoes and rice.

Harvesters, road-makers and others, who do hard work in the open air, can consume large quantities of sugar in pie, pastry, etc., which are difficult to digest, while one who lives an indoor life, should refrain from an undue indulgence in these.

For one who is undernourished, sugar is a desirable food, if the starch be diminished in proportion as the amount of sugar is increased; but the inclination in sweetening foods is to take more starch than the system requires, since it is the carbohydrate foods which are ordinarily sweetened,—not the proteins.

On account of the latent heat and energy, sugars are more desirable in cold weather than in warm. Nature supplies them more abundantly in root vegetables for this season. More puddings and heavier desserts are eaten in winter.

* * * * *

Starch is one of the most important carbohydrates used for nutrition. It is formed by the chemical action produced by the sun’s rays upon the cells of living plants, from the carbon-dioxid and water in the air and in the soil.

Corn starch, sago, tapioca, and arrowroot are practically pure starch. Cornstarch is from young maturing corn; tapioca is from the meal of a tropical plant, cassava; sago is from the pith of the sago palm; arrowroot is from a plant of the same name, a native of the West Indies. Rice is almost pure starch, while wheat and other cereals contain from sixty to seventy per cent.

Starch lacks flavor and for this reason all starchy foods are seasoned.

All starches must undergo much chemical change by action of the saliva, the intestinal juice and by the liver, before they can be used by the body. They are first converted into dextrine and then into maltose (animal sugar). The digestion is begun by the saliva in the mouth and continued in the stomach by the saliva swallowed with the food. If the saliva fails to digest all of the starch, either in the mouth or the stomach, it passes unchanged into the intestines, where it is converted by the amylase of the intestinal juice, first into dextrine and then into maltose, or sugar. It is absorbed into the blood as sugar. After the digested starch (maltose) passes into the blood it is spoken of as sugar. Before it is converted into energy it is again changed in the liver into animal starch (glycogen) and stored for a time in the liver. When the system is ready for it, it is again broken down into sugar, because in the form of glycogen it cannot be absorbed into the blood.

The chemical process used in the formation of glucose, from the starch in corn, is allied to the change in the liver, from starch into sugar.

The starches and sugars are really the “reserves” or “go-betweens” of the body, being stored until needed.

If starches are consumed in unduly large quantities, without sufficient exercise to burn them up, they overload the liver and clog the system.

Starchy foods should not be given to children before the starch converting ferments are formed, nor to one in disease where these ferments are interrupted.

Nitrogenous Foodstuffs or Proteins

The proteins form heat and energy when the supply of sugars, starches, and fat are exhausted, but proteins, alone form muscle, bone and sinew. They are, in this sense, the most important of foods,—they are, also, the most costly.

The foods most rich in proteins are meat and eggs. These have undergone chemical changes from the vegetable kingdom being built up into more complex compounds in the animal kingdom.

Meat and eggs are the tissue builders. In this connection it may be well to state that blood is tissue; thus meat and eggs build the blood, as well as muscle and sinew.

Nitrogenous foods, or proteins, are so called because of the large proportion of nitrogen which they contain. All nitrogenous foods contain considerable carbon—mostly in the form of fat in the meat elements—but the carbonaceous foods contain so little of the proteins that they do not appreciably enter into the nutrition,—the carbon and nitrogen in the carbo-nitrogenous foods are more equally divided.

The nitrogenous or protein elements in the body constitute about one-fifth of its weight. They make the framework, forming the basis of blood, lymph, muscle, sinew, bone, skin, cartilage, and other tissues.

Worn out body tissues is constantly being torn down and eliminated and the protein in the foods must daily furnish material for repair, as well as for building new tissue in the growing child.

A young animal’s first need is for growth, not having learned to exercise sufficiently to use much energy, and the first food given is an animal product—milk to babes and other mammals, while the young of other animals are first fed upon eggs.

The nitrogenous foods are required in smaller bulk than vegetables and fruits; they are more concentrated and contain less waste. According to recent experiments, the average adult requires from two to four ounces a day of nitrogenous foods, to repair the waste, according to the proportion of nitrogen contained. Happily, where more is consumed, the system has the power, up to a certain limit (depending upon the physical condition and the daily activity), to eliminate an excess. It is needless to say that if the daily waste is not re-supplied, the digestion and bodily nutrition suffer. The system must have the two to four ounces to supply the nitrogen daily excreted, or the tissues themselves will be consumed.

The proteins, of which meat is the principal one, are classified as

Albuminoids:—albumin (white of eggs), casein (curd of milk), myosin (the basis of lean meat and gluten of wheat),

Gelatinoids, (connective tissue of meat),